Real estate agencies are owed a profit

 There are probably tens of thousands of these “favors” doled out to constituents. Receivers gain at the expense of non-receivers. In total, the economy is harmed (less goods and services produced) as a result of these programs. There are so many interventions that it is probably impossible to catalog them all and definitely impossible to determine whether any one person or group is a net beneficiary (i.e., getting more than he loses). It is likely that all are net losers because they are beneficiaries in few programs and non-beneficiaries in most.
Perhaps the best way to understand what happens was provided by David Friedman. He described government as a game similar to musical chairs where 10 people sat in a circle and put a dollar behind them. The 11th person, playing the role of government, picked up the $10 and then walked around the circle until the music stopped. The person he stopped nearest to received $5 and then the game was repeated, again and again.

Below is a post from Mish that deals with one of the interventions. Both parties engage in the practice. Only control in Congress determines which one leads in such practices.
Hogwash
24 Senators and 63 House Representatives have completely lost their minds over pork bellies. Apparently the free market does not work, hog farmers are not making enough money, and the government owes farmers a profit no matter how much stuff they grow or raise.
Please consider USDA Must Buy Pork ‘Immediately,’ Hog Executive Says.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture must make funds available immediately to buy pork to keep hog farmers in business, the head of the second-biggest U.S. producer told a House of Representatives subcommittee.
Government pork purchases worth $100 million have won the backing of a bipartisan group of 87 lawmakers to support prices for farmers, who have lost money since 2007. Hog futures have dropped about 25 percent in Chicago since April 23, when swine flu began making headlines, depressing consumer demand and curbing exports to major markets including China and Russia.
Lawmakers need “to encourage and work with the Secretary of Agriculture to immediately make available” funds for government pork purchases, said Rod Brenneman, the chief executive officer of Seaboard Foods LLC, a unit of Merriam, Kansas-based Seaboard Corp. He testified before a House Agriculture Committee panel that oversees the livestock industry.
Lawmakers led by Senators Al Franken, Democrat of Minnesota, and Richard Burr, Republican of North Carolina, asked Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack to increase U.S. spending on pork in letters earlier this month.
The group of 24 senators and 63 representatives asked Vilsack to buy more pork in the year that began Oct. 1 through government food programs. The U.S. Department of Agriculture bought $165 million of the meat a year earlier, including $30 million announced on Sept. 3, according to Justin DeJong, a USDA spokesman.
The USDA may have less to spend on pork this year because of fiscal restraints, Vilsack said in an interview last week. He said the department is reviewing its plans for this year with an eye toward maximizing available funds for pork producers.
“We have to be sure we husband our resources and use them wisely,” he said last week.No One Owes Farmers A Profit
It is absurd to think the government or anyone else owes farmers a profit anymore than computer consulting corporations or real estate agencies are owed a profit.
Yes farmers have a rough life. But everyone unemployed or underemployed has a rough life now. Farmers are raising too many hogs and prices are low. The solution is to raise fewer hogs, either voluntarily or involuntarily via bankruptcy.
When government steps in and offers price supports it keeps weak producers alive when they should go out of business, it encourages more production of unwanted goods, those goods stockpile up and then finally the US government dumps the excesses on foreign markets at whatever price it can get. The latter is an enormous source of aggravation for struggling emerging market countries.